The Power of Polite Persistence

It’s tax time in the US. All US citizens have to have their income information filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by April 15 – aka Tax Day.

In our house, we’ve been getting our info organized so we can send it to our accountant. It’s not as much of a process as it was, once upon a time, thank goodness.

Taxes: the unsexy side of business.

Today’s Divine Daily is all about polite persistence. It’s how my accountant got me as a client. And I’ve been with her for 4 years now, paying for her monthly services (and doing so gratefully!).

Here’s that story…

Maddie and I initally met 5+ years ago in a class my mentor was offering. Later, we met in person at an event. She called me a few months later to invite me to a strategy session. I wasn’t interested.

But she persisted. Several times through the course of the following year, she contacted me to invite me to a strategy session. Each time, I politely declined (or ignored her).

At that time, my mom was handling my bookkeeping. (Thank goodness for moms, right? And yes, I was paying her.) But my business was growing very quickly and after a year of doing this for me, she said “I love you but I don’t want to do this any more.”

OMG. Panic!

Several months went by and I didn’t have anyone helping me out. Francisco and I limped through that tax season and spent waaaayy too much time doing our own taxes.

In June of that year, Maddie contacted me again. This time, I was much more open to hearing what she had to say, having just been through a painful tax season. While I had looked locally for someone to help me, I hadn’t committed to someone yet.

During our call, I had a lot of questions, most of which revolved around privacy and the mechanics of doing bookkeeping at a distance, since she’s in the Midwest and I’m in the Southeast. Maddie answered all of my questions and then gave me a fair offer.

I accepted it, and then began the process of getting all of my accounting paperwork to her.

The next year, doing taxes was so much easier than ever before. And last year, she did them for us, and it was even easier!

The bottom line is this: Maddie must have asked me to connect with her at least 6 times before we finally did. She was politely persistent. Even when I ignored her or politely declined, she knew that “no” wasn’t a total “no.” Rather, it was a “not right now.”

Smart woman.

What tipped it for me was my own sense of urgency and need. I was “ripe for the pluckin'” as I like to say. It worked.

And … I’m incredibly grateful to her for being so persistent, because she handles a piece of my business that I am frankly not good at!

She taught me a couple of powerful lessons in business: 1) that being persistent is essential to success, and 2) don’t take “no” personally. Instead, simply understand that timing is a very important piece of when or whether you get a client.

Your Divine Questions:

How can you step up your persistence?

And where can you let go of any story you may have about “People don’t want to work with me”?